The Sorrow and the Pity Page #2

a few disagreeable and derisory

remarks or comments

on the general emotional

and moral state of France.

GERMN NEWS:

Near Noyon, General Stummel,

taking the vanguard with his troops,

with his adjutant, took several prisoners.

It began with two.

Later, many others surrendered.

The prisoners come from every nation

and every walk of life.

So-called defenders of the great nation.

In fact, a shame for the white race.

These are the Black brothers of the French.

In the words of Chamberlain,

"We, together with our allies,

are the guardians of civilization."

"Together we fight medieval barbarism."

These are the guardians of civilization.

These are the barbarians.

This is the war

of the Franco-English plutocrats.

They began this war rashly without

taking any heed of the consequences,

to fight for the English lords,

not only until the last Frenchman,

but until the last French house.

Mrs. Tausend, you stayed in Germany.

Did you read the papers?

Did you watch the German news?

Yes, we followed the events closely.

Naturally, we were a bit frightened.

But the news of victory made us happy.

These cars are stopped for a lack of gas.

The Jewish warmongers

and Parisian plutocrats,

with their suitcases full of gold

and precious stones, have fled.

This shortage of gas

put a crimp in their plans.

The streets were hopelessly blocked.

Yet these English-loving

traitors and deserters

continued their journey on foot.

These are the French people

who have been mercilessly evacuated

and dragged along in the flood

of the routed French army.

Soon, these people

will be able to go home.

The German people were spared

such a trial,

thanks to the Fhrer

and his German soldiers.

During that time,

there was an enormous upsurge

of the people,

who were completely panicked, terrified.

Fate willed that I should be given leave

in the last few days of the month April.

Consequently, I was in Paris in early May

when the Germans invaded.

On the roads, people were going mad,

terrified by the bombings.

With them, they brought what they could:

children, pets, precious objects...

Some rode on wagons, others on bicycles.

It was a mish-mash of everything

and everyone. It was awful to see.

It was all the more awful in that

the Germans, in an effort to block

and ruin the roads for the soldiers

didn't hesitate in bombing

these columns of refugees.

s a result, and I can attest to this fact,

that there were bodies strewn

all over the place: men, women, horses.

Car wrecks sprinkled the roads.

It was a scene from hell.

and yet this wave, this flood of people,

continued to move south.

Our impressions?

We saw destroyed villages, burned lands...

It did have a certain effect on us.

-and the people on the roads?

-They were fleeing the bad guys.

What do you mean?

Weren't you the bad guys?

t first, we were seen as the enemy

who was set to destroy the country.

Then they began to see

that we just wanted to help.

and that reassured them.

The officers or the staff

were clearly out of their depth.

Having the trains, the roads,

and all telecommunications cut off

Led to a situation in which

any plans the soldiers had made

were suddenly completely ruined.

In addition, certain military circles

shared the attitude of many civilians,

and tackled the war unenthusiastically.

After all, they were living in...

I'm not saying they were traitors.

In any case, there were very few traitors.

But this attitude

of preferring Hitler to Lon Blum

was an attitude that had become

very popular in bourgeois circles.

and this was a circle

to which many of the soldiers belonged.

THE GRET BTTLE OF FRNCE

On June 14, 1940,

the Germans occupied Paris.

In Clermont, the papers went mad.

Le Moniteur took a stand,

asking the people to stand up and fight,

to resist,

to remain free.

The owner of this anti-defeatist paper,

Pierre Laval,

a deputy for uvergne, was,

at the same time, preparing for surrender.

The last government of the Third Republic

slowly moved southwards.

Paul Reynaud wanted to keep fighting,

but Philippe Ptain was already

taking charge.

In Briare,

Winston Churchill and Anthony Eden

met with their allies for the last time.

I've always felt

that Reynaud wanted to continue,

that he remained calm and firm.

Everyone was

in a very difficult position then.

I also believe, and this is something

he told both Churchill and me,

that he wasn't very happy

having Ptain as a part of his government.

-He'd foreseen the difficulties?

-Yes, already in Briare.

Now, I was a young soldier in World War l,

and for me, Ptain was the hero of Verdun.

But his character had changed.

That's to be expected with age.

I'm sure he was opposed to the idea

of your cities being destroyed,

because he spoke of it at dinner,

saying, "It's awful seeing

our lovely cities destroyed."

and I had to answer, "Yes, I understand.

"It's hard for an Englishman to say this,

but there are worse things

"than the destruction of cities."

But I don't think he was convinced.

We flew over France at a very low altitude.

-Hedgehopping?

-Yes.

In June, there's nothing quite like

the Norman and Breton countryside.

and I remember,

as if it only happened yesterday,

I remember thinking it was lovely,

but would I ever see it again?

and it seemed rather unlikely that I would.

Then the political climate changed

and became unbearable in Bordeaux.

Suddenly, treason was everywhere.

There was a will to surrender,

and a desire to get along

with the victors at any price.

Anglophobia, ever-present in France,

resurfaced with new vigor.

and all this went hand in hand

with a horrible kind of cynicism.

The military leaders, the ones who had

messed up, weren't even mentioned.

Instead, people blamed

absolutely everything on Lon Blum,

the Front Populaire and so forth.

and so we consoled ourselves

for the downfall of our nation

by getting petty revenge

in matters of internal affairs,

a trend which, as you know,

continued long afterwards.

On June 16,

the government met in Bordeaux.

Paul Reynaud was defeated by

the deputies who refused to leave France

and Ptain became

the head of government.

Adolf Hitler's elite S.S. troops

have invaded Vichy.

I felt terribly humiliated,

as I had been sent on a mission

on an English motorcycle

and was heading to Paris, when I saw

the Germans going the other way.

Now, being rather absent-minded,

I saw there were some people

following these German troops,

and assumed it was the English.

So they were going one way,

and I was going the other.

I saw the swastikas on their helmets,

and I thought I should go no further.

But no one asked me to stop.

Everyone was too busy

going their own way.

If I didn't like it, tough.

The Resistance in Clermont

was quickly crushed.

But the struggle,

albeit subdued, continued.

Hitler's S.S. division

conquered Clermont-Ferrand.

German troops occupied

the city for three days.

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